nine2five 2 Casey vs The Janitors
by Marc Vun Kannon
Summary: Chuck's first day on the job has Casey batting cleanup.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N** Yes, it's a nine2five story but this one won't be a comedy the way the last one was. At least, not so much. Always trying out new styles.

* * *

John Casey was a fraud.

He was supposed to be. The identity of John Casey had been created for a purpose, for a specific job, and the Powers That Be went to a great deal of trouble finding a man who would be able to fill out that persona with the least amount of 'leftovers'. Troublesome things, leftovers. Qualms, fears, second thoughts, anything that could sneak up from behind and ruin the career of a carefully constructed artificial person. Can't have that.

Not that greed or pride were much better, in the long run, but since their objects were all self-contained they were much more easily manipulated. The more their actual aims matched those of the Powers That Be, the happier everyone would be, but patriots of that sort were rare.

So when Alex Coburn volunteered for advanced training those same Powers That Be practically turned cartwheels to get him on board with their highly selective program. Sure he had a family and a girlfriend, but if they really knew him they would understand, not that they would ever know. At least that's what the Powers That Be told him. What he told himself. Alex Coburn earned himself a valorous and tragic death in combat, by not dying to serve his country.

Thus John Casey was created, neither birthed nor hatched, his history curiously and endlessly malleable for the needs of the day. Only a few things were constant through it all, Reagan, Johnny Walker Black, good cigars, and his beloved Crown Victoria. And guns, lots of guns.

* * *

"I know what's bothering you about this mission, Casey," said Chuck triumphantly. "You won't get any chance to shoot things!" He raised his hands but hit the roof of Casey's car and brought them back down again, shaking out the pain.

_Except you, moron._ Since Chuck was the asset, currently under his protection, shooting him would be counter-productive. Casey considered grunting, but decided not to. Most people took his grunts as he intended, a shield to discourage conversation. The nerd interpreted it as a language, compiled a dictionary, and just kept talking. Little freak even spoke Klingon! Like his little freak CIA buddy, Bryce freaking Larkin, long may he rest in peace.

Casey rolled his eyes, pretending to look in the rearview. The nerd didn't have a dictionary for those yet.

Besides, Larkin died for his country, managed to do something right. The kid showed some stones too, uploading the new Intersect when he had the world–and Walker–at his fingertips without it. But he knew the greater good when he heard it shooting outside the door, and did what he had to do, gave his life for his country. Casey understood that kind of sacrifice. Had to respect it.

Didn't have to like it. Not when their current 'mission' would have them toiling away in the bowels of the CIA building, cleaning up after the little pukes.

Still, it could have been worse. Without Orion's program to get the secrets out of his son's head again, they'd all be stuck back in Burbank, selling Beastmasters. Casey smiled. He liked the Beastmaster, bought one for himself before he left, using his real credit card so he'd get the commission.

Of course Chuck noticed. "What's so funny? Remembering last night's episode of 'Explosions of the Rich and Famous'?"

_There's a concept._ He grunted his approval. Rich party-boy yahoos loved to blow things up. Probably pee their pants at the first hint of real danger. Not like Bartowski. "Just trying to imagine which'll be skinnier, you or the mop handle."

Chuck snorted. "Like I'm ever gonna swing a mop."

_Heh. _"This may be a cover, Bartowski, but that doesn't mean you won't have to do some real work once in a while. Get ready for some blisters."

Chuck suddenly looked at his hands in horror, so soft and white. "My hands! They're never gonna believe I'm a janitor with hands like these!"

Casey grunted in amusement. "Relax. New runt like you, they'll give you the toilets."

"You're not cheering me up."

"Not trying to."

Chuck crossed his arms, frowning in silence. Casey smiled and drove on.

* * *

"So, you're the two new guys they told me they were sending over?" The head janitor, whose nameplate said (strangely enough) 'Dimples', look over his two newest subordinates, dismissing Chuck almost instantly. Casey he studied as if mass equaled attention in some variation of tough-guy physics. Casey blatantly sized him up right back. Dimples pointed his cigar (not cuban) at Casey. "You I can probably use. I don't think we have coveralls small enough for your partner here, though."

Casey smirked, but said nothing.

"Still, I got some jobs where a small guy comes in handy." He stuck the cigar back in his mouth, talked around it. "You okay wit' dat, small guy?"

Chuck shifted. "I'm okay with anything you can throw at me, Chief."

"Oh, a _tough_ small guy. I like that. You can call me Dimples, tough guy." He smiled. "Now take your bodyguard here and go ask for Muffin. He'll get you squared away."

Casey started to snarl at the dismissal, both overt and otherwise, but Chuck turned and took his arm before he got past the 'g' in 'grrr'. "Come on, bodyguard."

The touch of Chuck's hand on his forearm distracted Casey from his outrage. "Hands." The moment lost, he followed his charge out of the chief's office.

The outer room was full of racks, and the racks were full of boxes and other obscure and unknown implements of the janitor's trade, but people were in short supply. Since they knew where the door was, they went the other way, past many racks and even into inner rooms. "Is it my imagination, Casey, or is there an awful lot of stuff here for being a janitor?"

"You ever been a janitor, Bartowski?"

"Mop-swinging and toilet-cleaning weren't covered in the Nerd Herd handbook, no, but I'm guessing there's a chapter or two in the NSA playbook you've memorized."

"Don't laugh, runt. It's a good cover. No one notices the janitors. Or the waiters."

"Or the bartenders. I get it, Casey."

"Yet you still talk about it. Is it genetic, or–?"

A large black man stepped out of the shadows. "Can I help you gentlemen?"

Chuck drew up short, a new reflex based on large people coming out of gloom. He tried to step back, restore his personal space, but Casey was right behind him and wasn't feeling at all threatened. "Ahhh… we're looking for Muffin, sir, Dimples sent us." He stepped to one side.

"I'm Muffin. You the two new guys we was told about? What's your name, new guy?"

"Actually, 'Muffin', that's 'Tough Guy', according to Dimples." Casey smirked at Chuck's horrified glance. "What?"

Muffin smiled. "Tough Guy, huh? I like that." He pointed at Casey. "And what's his name, Tough Guy?"

Casey's heart sank.

"His name?" Chuck looked at him, that damned twinkle in his eye. Casey just knew the moron was going to do something stupid. "He's, uh, he's 'Ladyfeelings.'"

Muffin laughed, very loud. "Now I know why they call you Tough Guy." He looked at Casey. "Semper Fi, Ladyfeelings."

Casey grunted. Chuck looked confused. "How'd you know…?"

Muffin smiled. "Name like that, gotta be a Marine. Come on, gents, let's get you set up."

* * *

An hour or so later, a new janitor by name of T. Guy, according to the temporary name patch on his overly large coveralls, was slaving away at the toilets in the first floor men's lavatory. He didn't mind the work so much, Bartowskis tend to clean when they're nervous and calling Casey 'Ladyfeelings' to his face was enough to make anyone nervous. He found the work calming, not that you could tell that from the yelp he let out when J. C. Ladyfeelings slammed the door open. "Get it in gear, Bartowski. Intersects don't upload themselves."

"I'm almost done," said Chuck, scrubbing harder.

Casey sighed. "Leave the john, genius. You have real work to do."

Chuck stood, and gestured at the mop Casey had recently been swinging. "I thought you said _this_ was real work."

"I lied. I do that."

Chuck quickly stripped off the coverall, and Casey handed him a nametag. "Wait, what are you going to be doing while I'm in there?"

"What do you think, numb-nuts? Groups like Fulcrum are never really dead, and then there's this Ring group Larkin mentioned. I'm going to be wandering the halls of Langley, in my spiffy new government-issued jumpsuit, waiting for you to tell me if there are any traitors betraying their country in their cubicles. Walker—I mean, your wife—is waiting down at the Farm for the same thing. You find it, we kill it."

"Or arrest it, right?"

"With a mop handle?"

* * *

Someone knocked on the door. "Come."

Muffin entered the room and saluted. "You wanted to see me, sir?"

"How are the new trainees, Muffin?"

The big man slid smoothly from attention to parade rest. "Tough Guy is not at any of his assigned stations, sir, although several of them look like he was there already. I have Babyface trying to track him down now. Ladyfeelings is already on the third floor. At the rate he's going he'll half the facility done by lunch. You'd think he was in the Navy, not the Marines." Muffin chuckled.

Dimples didn't. "He's neither, Muffin. Ladyfeelings is really John Casey, of the NSA."

Muffin got very serious. "The burn-out?"

"Didn't look that way to me. He's playing a subtle game, him and his boss."

"Tough Guy? His boss?"

"I want to know why these two are sniffing around our territory. Especially Tough Guy. I pulled up a lot of NSA rocks and couldn't find him under any of them. Must be some kind of super-agent."

"Casey could break him in half."

"Looks real, doesn't it? Don't forget, so do we. Find Tough Guy, and keep tabs on both. They can't be allowed to know what the whole CIA doesn't."

* * *

**A/N** Cliffhanger-y enough?


	2. The Dirt Nap

**A/N **All details about the interior layout of CIA headquarters are completely made up, since I hate to do research, and really, who wants to be caught researching the interior layout of spy central?

The plot thickens…

* * *

John 'Ladyfeelings' Casey was in the north stairwell when the special phone in his special pocket rang. "Hello?"

"Kaleidoscope, prepare to go to local control." The phone went dead.

"I'm working now, I'll call you back when I'm on break," he said to no one. Putting the phone away, he paused a second to run his hands through his hair, incidentally managing to activate the ear bud he'd been wearing all day, just in case. _Local control?_ Quick and dirty, and on the first day, too. He just hoped Bartowski was up to it. "Kaleidoscope local."

"Kaleidoscope, this is Eagle-Eye."

Casey grunted at all the nerd codenames.

"I heard that."

He grit his teeth. "Roger, Eagle-Eye."

"Better. Head up stairs. Third floor."

Casey stopped. "Third floor? That's Accounting."

" We caught some cell chatter indicating a sudden high-value Ring op has been laid on."

Casey saved his breath for climbing. "In the _chatter?_" _In Accounting?_

Chuck smiled, Casey could _hear_ him smile. "Hey, I'm wearing headphones while I look at pictures. The Intersect works on sound, who knew? Or maybe that's a leftover from the Fulcrum version I got stuck with way back when." In spite of the trip down memory lane, Casey felt better. By-the-book professional Chuck just sounded too weird. "And here I thought the visual stuff was strange. Anyway, we caught a code 'I' on its way out the door."

"Code 'I'? That's an old Fulcrum code. I thought you said this was a Ring op."

Chuck the Analyst came back on the line. "Frequency and encryption are not consistent with known Fulcrum practices. The death of Fulcrum might have left the field open for the Ring, who wouldn't otherwise have a need for code 'I'."

Casey considered it, and agreed. "Even if the Ring had a new code of their own, their field agents might not know it. Meaning the code is very new—"

"Or the agent is very junior."

"That would explain how they got stuck here." Casey looked through the window, but saw no one.

Chuck ignored that. If it didn't go Boom! Casey wasn't interested. "Northside cubicles. Name is Betsy Ross."

Taking the name of an American patriot in vain! "Diabolical."

Chuck knew his teammate. "If only that was the worst of her crimes."

"It's enough. What do I say?"

"I have no idea."

_Typical. _Casey yanked the door open_._ Knows just enough to get other people into trouble. He stepped into the janitor's closet, to get the cart for this floor, just making his rounds. "What _can_ you tell me?"

"Hey, this is all new to me too, big guy. I'll listen in, see if anything she says gives me another flash. Or maybe I should come up with a different word for flashing on sounds…"

"Try 'flush.'"

"On second thought, flash is good."

"Heh. We're gonna have to change that callsign of yours. Instead of Eagle-Eye maybe you should be Graboid."

"All right, who are you and what have you done with my friend John Casey?"

"Just goes to show you don't know everything about old Ladyfeelings, do you, Graboid? I happen to like that movie, especially the monsters. Silent killers."

"I would have thought you'd like Gummer."

"Gummer was a wimp. And the operative word is silent."

"Uh, Casey, you do realize this is radio, right? I can't exactly offer guidance with emphatic gestures."

"Don't worry, I've seen those gestures before. Now go silent, already." Casey pushed the cart out into the hall before Chuck could reply, making his way quickly and steadily around the block of cubicles, gathering trash bins. Eventually he got around to the north side. When he got to the cubicle marked 'Elizabeth Ross' he acted surprised to find someone inside on their lunch break. "Oh, I'm sorry, I wasn't expecting…Sorry to disturb you, Miss…" He made a show checking the name again. "Ross. Elizabeth Ross, I guess that would make you Betsy Ross, I kind of like the _ring_ of that."

The woman put down the book she was reading, a copy of Hamlet, and looked up at him suspiciously. "Do I know you?" She touched the desk to turn her chair, and suddenly Chuck gasped in his ear.

"Oh, ow! Ah…Uncle Bob…knee surgery…gotta go, this really hurts…" The bud went silent in Casey's ear, leaving him alone with the Ring agent in her lair.

Through it all he kept a straight face, a reflex he was glad to have. At least he didn't have to worry about the moron listening in. "Does the rabbit know the falcon, or the hawk? Stop to ask it its name in mid-swoop? I don't think so."

She frowned at him. "Falcon?"

_Heh._ Thought so. Ring agents didn't have Chuck's knack for original call signs, and they all wanted to sound cool. "Or any other bird of prey. I'm not really married to the metaphor, I've heard them all so many times. One guy showed some originality, paraphrased Shakespeare."

That got her interest, as he'd expected. "Shakespeare knew his warrior-kings. Which play?"

"Merchant of Venice."

Her eyebrows rose.

"The quality of Casey is not strained, it falleth as the gentle box of hammers from Heaven."

She burst out laughing. "Oh my god…!"

He smiled too. "Well, it was better than a summer's day."

"You…don't talk like a janitor."

Like a Ring accountant would know what a janitor sounds like. "Excuse me?"

"You should talk less, no one will believe you."

Casey grunted.

She pointed. "Exactly, like that. Much better."

"Feels funny, though. Don't see how I'm expected to communicate much by grunting."

"Give it a try. And I suppose you want my trash can, to complete the ensemble?"

He grunted an affirmative.

"See? Much more the thing." She reached down and brought up her own can. Before she handed it over to him she added a last item, looking like a sealed birthday card. "I was going to give this to someone, but I don't like him nearly as much as I like you."

Casey smiled, taking the can by one edge. "Uncle Bob's bum knee acting up again?"

She released the can to him, and he took the bag, card and all. "Hamlet, huh?" he asked, as if just noticing the book she held. "I like that book, everybody dies."

"It's supposed to be a tragedy."

"What's tragic about it? A dithering idiot and his incompetent murdering family? Please, wipe them out." Casey raised his hand, thumb up."'To be or not to be? Not to be." He clicked his thumb down, like clicking a pen, or pressing a detonator.

"Clever."

He took a little bow. "That's the Schwarzenegger version."

"I don't think I've ever seen that one."

"Google it from your safe house. The CIA caught your 'I' code, the original appointment would have been an ambush."

"I wondered why you were so early."

"Yeah, well, you're gonna be late if you don't get a move on." Casey had to get both of them out of there before her real contact showed up.

She grabbed her bag and stood. "I think I'm going to take a late lunch, a long one."

"The longer the better. Get off the grid, and stay off it. We won't be meeting again."

She left, moving calmly to somewhere. Casey continued his rounds to the closet and returned the cart. "Graboid, this is Kaleidoscope."

"There, you see, Casey, Graboid and Kaleidoscope really don't go together. If we're gonna go with this whole 'giant underground predator' motif, we really need some new call signs across the board. How do you feel about Dustbowl?"

"Try 'Dirtnap', numb-nuts."

"Okay! Way to think inside the box! And Sarah can be Perfection, of course."

_Heh_. "Of course. Do you care if I got the package, Graboid?"

"I assumed you got it, I mean, you're Casey, I mean, Dirtnap."

"Well, thanks for that, Graboid," said Casey, that is, Dirtnap under his breath.

Chuck heard it anyway, but contrary to public opinion, knew when to keep his mouth shut, or in this case, change the subject. "What did you do with the Ring agent?"

Casey shrugged, not that Chuck would see it. "By now she should be halfway out of the state, if she has any sense. And she does have sense."

"You let her go?"

"She thinks I'm Ring, dumbass. She'll go to her safehouse, and eventually she'll go back to the Ring, and when she does the tracker I dropped into her purse when she wasn't looking will lead us right to them."

"Smooth."

"It's not my first evil conspiracy, you know."

"And here I thought you liked her."

"Don't insult me, Graboid." Only the need to keep his voice low kept him from snarling. "She's a traitor, and I don't like traitors. I can and do occasionally respect them. She had wit and intelligence. Too bad she'll be dead soon, but that was her choice." He opened her bag and took out the package.

"Why will she be dead soon?"

"Sooner or later someone's bound to catch up to her, and both sides will believe she's a traitor when that happens, and all the Shakespeare in the world won't save her from that." He put the trash into the trash.

"Shakespeare?"

"Well, you couldn't give me a code phrase, so I had to fake it. Plus I'm a good guesser." Silence met his declaration. "What? I'm not a robot."

"Good to know. Not hatched, not a robot." Chuck sounded a little distant, like he was making notes. "You like Shakespeare, Dirtnap?"

"Yup. He knew how a soldier thinks. His St. Crispin's Day speech ranks among the purest poetry the world has ever known."

This time Chuck did make a note. "I only know Hamlet, myself."

"I like Hamlet too." Casey studied the handwriting on the envelope, her fake uncle's name in neat cursive script. He wondered what the handwriting analysts would have to say about it.

"Really? Why?"

"Everybody dies." He tucked the envelope with the intel inside his special pocket, next to his special phone. _Everybody dies._"Signing off now, Graboid."

"Call Base for pickup, Dirtnap. Graboid signing off."

* * *

The man came to full attention, as bearers of bad news always have. "Sir, I must report our mission was unsuccessful. We failed to obtain the package, and Miss Ross is no longer in the building."

"That's not good news, Babyface," said Dimples. "The value of this package was made quite clear to all of us. Do you know who has that data, if we do not?"

"It was received by a man in a janitor's uniform, matching the description of Ladyfeelings, sir. Shall I have him brought in?"

Dimples was strongly tempted, but—"No, no. Let him think we suspect nothing, for now. I'm much more concerned with Tough Guy, his control. Reacquiring him must be our highest priority."

"It will be done, sir. We will not fail."

"We have the Intersect within our grasp, Babyface. We must not fail."

* * *

**A/N **No, I don't think I had Casey acting too much OOC there. Except possibly for all the cultural references, but really, Tremors is a great Creature Feature. Anyone who thinks Casey wouldn't appreciate Shakespeare hasn't seen Renaissance Man, which isn't a great movie but does make some good points pretty well.

Comments appreciated, as always.


	3. Perfection

**A/N** A bit later than I like. Had to go to Printers Row Lit Fest and sell 'tonnes and tonnes' of great books last weekend. Plus I don't do much with the action sequences so it took a while to get one I was comfortable with. The plot is reshaping itself again, as usual.

* * *

Casey was getting really tired of swinging his mop, so the trill of an incoming voicemail from his special pocket was more than welcome. He knew what it was, or at least should have been, and pulled it out to verify.

EEOL. Casey grunted in appreciation, deleted the text, and tucked the phone back into its hiding place. A message in an unbreakable code on an untraceable call from an encrypted phone. _Should be safe enough._ No one told Casey the code but no one had to, that was the beauty of it. An enemy couldn't overhear a secret that was never spoken.

And they wondered why he grunted so much.

So Eagle-Eye was Off Line. _About time._ Bartowski must not have informed Base that they'd changed their call signs. A tiny screw-up in the scheme of things, but it felt good to have something to razz the kid over while he scrubbed toilets in the first floor men's.

Most people thought John Casey was just obnoxious. Casey preferred to think of it as 'training by ordeal.'

* * *

Sarah was in a hurry, so she drove more slowly than usual, even though her Porsche was well known to the highway patrols hereabouts. Or it had been. She'd been gone two years, after all, and she may have fallen off the unofficial list of People Not to Mess With. Probably not, men tended to remember her. She had no time or desire to find out.

Base had called to alert her hours ago to the operation her husband was running, on his first day on the job, even though she was at a remote location. A high priority op, in response to a Ring op of equally high priority. Casey and Chuck, alone. His very. First. Day.

She shorted a class, and skipped a meeting. They'd forgive her. Or not. She didn't think about it much, she was operating on instinct now. She'd call it a hunch, but she wasn't big on hunches. More of an itchy feeling she got when words like 'Ring' and 'Chuck' appeared in the same sentence.

Now she was considerably more than halfway from here to there, places where speeds were not measured by aircraft but by more conventional, down-to-earth means. She had no time to play games with the police today. When her phone went off she wasn't about to pull over to answer it.

"Telescope, we have a situation."

She smiled, but for all the wrong reasons. Pressed her foot down, for all the right ones.

Bring on the planes.

* * *

Chuck checked a second time that the access into the Intersect area was closed, and shut the closet door. Gratefully he took the bag off his head and put it in the drawer of the desk in the plainly furnished office, where it would stay until he would need it tomorrow. There wasn't supposed to be any surveillance but then he wasn't supposed to get kicked out of Stanford either, or be working as a janitor as a cover for his real work. If there was one thing life taught him it was that life rarely went as it was supposed to.

He checked the monitors by the door. Only someone passing by at the wrong time could see him step out of that room, so he had to make sure no one did. The section of hallway on the other side was covered by only two cameras, which were looped with a view of the empty hall whenever he used the door. As far as the rest of the world was concerned this room was never used.

* * *

Slightly more than halfway to the first floor men's, where Casey was supposed to reacquire Bartowski and get him back into his cover, his phone went off again, not the trill of a text, but a regular call. "Hello?"

"Kaleidoscope, we have a situation. Our courier reports that the package has been intercepted."

Casey almost snarled. "By who?"

"Unknown at this time, Kaleidoscope. We have a description of a large man, African-American–" Casey rolled his eyes at the politically correct terminology. _Are people really that afraid of words?_ "—and dressed in a custodian's uniform."

Muffin? Which was perhaps jumping the gun a little, as Muffin was simply the only black janitor Casey'd seen so far. He'd seen quite a few today, none close, just coming within range of his situational awareness and then out again. Now that he thought about it, he realized that he'd seen only a few janitors, over and over. Keeping tabs on him. "On it." He shoved the mop and bucket into an alcove and promptly forgot about them.

"Telescope has been notified and is en route."

_Heh._ Walker's probably been en route since the op started. Time for plan B.

* * *

"Casey," called Chuck softly, as if his bodyguard was somehow hiding his large frame inside the first floor men's somewhere. No bodyguard. No janitor's outfit to put on over this suit.

Time for plan B.

* * *

No knock this time. "Sir, we have reacquired Tough Guy."

Dimples switched the cigar from one side of his mouth to the other in relief. "Excellent news, Babyface. When and where?"

"Sweetcheeks spotted him in the Westside cafeteria, dressed in a suit, wearing a nametag that said 'Charles Irving.'"

Dimples frowned. "Not an alias I've ever heard of. I'll have to run it through the db, see if it's a cover anyone's used before. Was Ladyfeelings anywhere in sight?"

"Negative, sir. He's has been under continuous surveillance as per your instructions."

Running feet in boots warned him, and Babyface turned as another man slammed into the door jamb, panting. "Sir, Ladyfeelings is no longer on station."

"You two, bring in Tough Guy. Now."

* * *

First thing Casey had to do was find Muffin. There could be other black janitors but start with the one you know. The guy could even be innocent.

Wouldn't _that_ suck?

He raced to an interception point, glad for his cover for once, and its janitor's keys that let him take stairs unavailable to ordinary folks. Hopefully Muffin would go back to Interiors Maintenance rather than try to drop the package himself. It was the only hope they had.

He left the stairwell, walking quickly and—yes! Reagan was in his Roadster and all was right with the world! "Hey, Muffin," he said, as casually as a slightly out-of-breath person could.

"Ladyfeelings." Muffin sounded surprised, but he stopped, that was the important thing. "I thought you'd be on the roof by now."

If he meant to put Casey at ease with some kind of feeble joke, he failed dismally. All Casey got was the knowledge that they had indeed been watching him. "I would have been, but I went by the mailroom and found that I'd lost my card. A Get Well card for my Uncle Bob." Muffin wasn't ready for the comment, and Casey was watching his face.

Then Casey was hitting his face.

Muffin wasn't called Muffin for nothing, and hit back.

Neither man was big on finesse. They hit. They took hits. They absorbed pain and bulled on through, until one of them could take no more.

At least, that was the theory.

In practice, Casey couldn't wait that long. Whether there were any other traitors in IM or not, he was low man on the totem pole. Muffin could get away simply because the others trusted him more. And he had to get back to Chuck. No way Walker would show her face around the two of them.

Suddenly Muffin stumbled forward and sagged in his arms, struck from behind. Casey eyed his aider and abettor, a slim brunette with large sunglasses covering half her face. "Nice outfit, Walker."

Sarah Walker even smiled differently when she was in character. "Had it in the car, just in case. What's his deal?" Together they dragged Muffin into a stairwell and Casey cuffed him to the railing. "I'll let you know when I find out myself," he said, frisking the other guy. Paper crinkled. The envelope Casey sought was intact, and he handed it off to the only courier he could trust on sight. "Take that to Base."

_No! I did what I had to do._ "I have to get to Chu-Eagle-Eye."

Casey sighed. Ladyfeelings. "If Bar-the moron did what he was supposed to do he's perfectly safe on the other side of the building, probably gorging on soda and junk food and watching videos on his phone. He can wait, but something they want this badly won't."

Sarah snarled. Duty. Bad enough she couldn't run, or do anything to draw attention to herself. Now she couldn't even kick Casey's ass if something happened.

Casey shut the door after her…and ducked. Muffin's large fist parted his short hair but hurt nothing more sensitive than that. "Out of my way, Marine. I have a date to keep, with a hot brunette."

Casey grinned, and clenched his hand. "She's taken, but she's got five brothers I'd like you to meet."

* * *

Sensors in the wall detected the beacon in Sarah's earring, and the automatically looped footage of an empty hall took over on the monitors no one was watching anyway. The hot brunette slipped into the empty office and triggered the mechanism, free at last to hurry.

Minutes later, a hot blonde left.

* * *

"Muffin did _what?_" No reply. Chuck looked around, trying not to let his anxiety show. Sure he was supposed to wait in this public area for pickup but eventually someone was bound to notice that his 'coffee break' was going on just a little too long. Plus he was running out of money and the vending machines were really expensive.

Someone entered the room, and as always he flicked his gaze to assess the possible threat. _Crap._ A janitor, taking the bag out of the bin. Chuck immediately got up and headed for the coffee station. If he was lucky the guy would just take the bag and leave.

"Hey, Tough Guy, you look good in a suit."

So much for luck. "I'm sorry, were you talking to me?" Chuck scooped up some of the plastic knives as he turned. Sure the CIA valued him and was more than willing to protect him, but they didn't think he was as absolutely necessary as they used to, and they didn't know that the Ring was in the building. His wife did, though, and he just needed to hold them off until she arrived.

"I'm afraid so, Mr. Irving."

A second voice. _I definitely should have pushed for the analyst job._ He turned suddenly, flicking out plastic cutlery into reaching hands almost as fast as he saw them.

"Ah-!"

"Garammit to hell!"

Chuck dashed for the door, tripping over chairs and sliding across table tops, right into the arms of a third man waiting for him. He dropped, leaving the guy holding his suit coat as he slithered out of it. He fell backward between the man's legs and kicked him in the ass, pushing his opponent forward and himself toward the door at the same time. A year and a half as the Intersect had taught him just so much about running away.

"Chuck!"

"Sarah!" No, she was not in the hallway. She was in the cafeteria with three large angry men. _Spiffing!_ With no time to flash, he just took the last knife in his hand, scrambled to his feet and stabbed it at the back of the man he'd just kicked.

Of course the guy turned around and literally caught him in the act. "That's cheating," he said as he started crushing Chuck's wrist to powder.

Chuck almost didn't care. "And your two friends double-teaming a woman isn't?"

The big guy turned to watch. "I like cheating." He pulled a tube out of his pocket, flicked off the cap at one end. A blowgun, low-tech equivalent of a tranq pistol that didn't look like a tranq pistol, wouldn't set off any of her built-in alarms. All his two friends had to do was get Sarah to hold still for one second. He raised it to his mouth.

The pair split up, moving to either side of her.

Sarah paused to assess the threat, unaware of the true danger.

Chuck wrapped his free arm around his captor's head and swung his legs up, spoiling his vision, balance, and aim. As they fell to the ground together, Chuck realized that distracting his wife at that moment might not have been the best idea.

The big guy struggled to push Chuck away. "Get off me, stringbean!"

Chuck struggled to hold on. "Stringbean? What kind of an insult is that?"

His opponent let go of his wrist and shoved Chuck off him with both hands. He rose unharmed, but the blowgun in his hand wasn't so lucky, so he dropped it and curled his hand into a fist. "Old school."

Chuck raised his hands, elbow hurting, head swimming. He looked at his arm, and the blowgun dart sticking through his shirt. Damn. "That's…_so_ unfair."

He fell into darkness, the last thing he heard the sound of his wife's voice, calling his name.

* * *

**A/N2** Comments welcome, as always.


	4. St Crispin

**A/N** With thanks to Michael66 for his comments and advice. And Shakespeare, too.

I don't own Chuck, Chuck owns me.

* * *

_He which hath no stomach to this fight,  
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,  
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;  
We would not die in that man's company  
That fears his fellowship to die with us._

_I'm not going anywhere._

John Casey tested his bonds covertly, not wanting to let any of his captors know that he was awake when an advantage might be found in their ignorance. The guy who tied these knots must have been a Boy Scout, though.

It hadn't been Muffin, that was for sure. He knew he'd broken at least one of the guy's fingers, not that a little thing like that had kept him down. He just led with his left instead of his right, until his reinforcements arrived.

Ironic that Casey's job now was to hold out until his reinforcements left. Casey appreciated irony. For a brief second, he wondered if Shakespeare had ever written a play about Horatius at the bridge. That would have been a text worth studying!

Except that Casey much preferred taking the battle to the enemy, not making dramatic stands, last or otherwise. This whole protective thing chafed at him a bit, not his thing at all. He'd walked away from a fiancée to do battle. Now, here he was.

Hooray for irony.

_This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.  
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,  
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,  
And rouse him at the name of Crispian._

"How's the hand, Muffin?"

Muffin dropped his hand from the salute, looked at his taped fingers. "Doc said it was a clean break, sir, should heal up in a couple of weeks. Guess I'm off mop detail, though."

"I could give you the toilets, except we have Tough Guy covering those. Bet you'd love to give him a swirlie, eh?"

"The thought never entered my mind, sir."

Dimples grunted a dubious acknowledgement. "Good job soldier."

"Begging your pardon, sir, but I lost the package."

"You were up against superior numbers, and struck from behind. No fault of yours."

"Thank you, sir. Do we know where the package went?"

Dimples frowned, and sat down heavily. "We do not. We had eyes on your 'hot brunette' from the moment she left the stairwell until this point–" Rather than fast forward through the footage he tapped a map of the building "–where she vanished. Probably looped footage, which means a confederate in the building."

"Tough Guy, sir?"

"Most likely. He was spotted on the west side, I've dispatched Babyface and Sweetcheeks to get him. As for the brunette, the only woman in that area with even a passing resemblance was Miss Walker."

"I didn't know she was in the building. Did anyone see her enter?" Anyone else, that'd be suspicion talking. Muffin was just a fan.

"No. Does this surprise you?"

Not at all. "Is it true she got married, sir?"

_How did I ever guess? _"Yeah, some super-agent named Carmichael. Lotta strange rumors going around about him. Jumps off of buildings to say hello, that sort of thing."

Muffin grinned. "Sounds like her type."

"Maybe not, I heard some things," said Dimples dismissively. Enough chit-chat. "You got anything else on this brunette, maybe we can track her down?"

"Just a few words. 'Chu–', 'bar', moron, and Eagle-eye. It sounded like they were all referring to the same person."

"Tough Guy again, I'm betting. We get him, we'll probably get her too. Okay." Dimples stood again. "Let's go talk to Agent Casey."

_He that shall live this day, and see old age,  
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,  
And say "To-morrow is Saint Crispian."_

"All right, wake him up." Dimples sat down, facing the prisoner.

At the command, an underling stepped forward and threw the contents of a glass of water in Casey's face, carefully aimed so that the spillage would go down his shirt rather than onto the floor. Just because they had an abundance of mops didn't mean they wanted to use them.

"Rise and shine, sleepy-head." Dimples smiled. "I'd say 'on your feet, soldier,' but you know what they say about giving orders that can't be obeyed."

Casey adopted an innocent expression. "Just a humble janitor here, boss. What do they say?"

Dimples leaned in close, spewing cheap-cigar breath into his victim's face. "Don't do it." He sat back, and Casey allowed himself to breathe again. "Just a janitor, eh? Didn't know the 82nd Airborne had a janitorial brigade."

"Only for mopping up, boss."

Dimples laughed, and his men allowed themselves to smile. Casey did neither, waiting for any kind of opening to present itself.

"You're a funny guy, Ladyfeelings. It's really gonna hurt me to have to torture you."

"Not as much as it'll hurt me, I'm thinking."

Dimples nodded. "That's true, you got me there. Of course, you could just tell us what we want to know and save us making a mess."

"But you have all these wonderful mops…"

Dimples sighed. "Okay, fine. Have it your way." He nodded to his subordinates. "Take him to the Ring."

_Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,  
And say "These wounds I had on Crispian's day."_

This was the strangest torture Casey had ever experienced.

For a minute there, when they'd mentioned 'the Ring', he'd gotten his hopes up. Then he found out they meant an actual ring, a clear space well in the back of Interiors Maintenance, defined by a circle of ordinary folding metal chairs.

Then, once they'd carried the chair with him on it into the center of this space, they untied him, and stood back. When he stood up, he could hear someone take the chair away but that was all. Warily, he eyed the circle of men, waiting for someone to bring out the trays of drugs, and other implements of a more corporal nature.

Dimples pointed. "Pebbles, you go first." Everyone sat.

Gotta give him credit, the kid was good, but John Casey was an enthusiast. The fight didn't last long, but victory didn't come as easily as it should have, either. His previous fight in the stairwell was slowing him down.

His adversaries were all fresh, expecting him to fall to one of them, sooner or later. That was their mistake.

John Casey fought for a lot of reasons. He fought because he liked it. That carried him through the first couple of bouts, until the pain overwhelmed the pleasure of combat.

"Who are you?" they would ask.

He only had one answer. "No."

John Casey fought for work. He'd trained in a variety of martial arts in his youth, but he preferred the less disciplined styles. When it was no longer fun it became work, and he dragged out his formal training, settling into the angry center that Chuck had helped him to find. He had to protect Chuck, that was his job. Anger got him past the pain, skill kept him from getting any more. Until he began to tire. No amount of anger could carry him past that.

"Who are you?"

Panting. "No."

John Casey fought for time. Time for Chuck, time for Sarah. She would protect Chuck when he could not. He wouldn't be able to much longer.

"Who are you?"

Wheezing. "No."

John Casey fought for honor. They'd have to kill him first, because John Casey wasn't fighting for his life.

"Who are you?"

Whispering. "No."

Dimples stood at last. He eyed John Casey with sad respect. "Just tell me who you are, why you're here, and I'll make this quick and easy."

Casey turned to watch out of the eye that still opened, and gestured him on, smiling.

Dimples came on. A lightning jab to the elbow paralyzed Casey's arm. Another to his throat left him choking. A knee broke some ribs and spun him about. Another jab to the back of his knee brought him down hard on the wooden floor.

"Who are you?"

Casey could not speak, but shook his head in mute denial.

Dimples eyed his fallen opponent. "You've done well, Major Casey of the NSA, but it ends now."

_All for nothing. _No. Not for nothing. Casey rose to one knee, forcing himself to move around the pain. "My name…is…Ladyfeelings."

Dimples nodded. "Ladyfeelings it is." He dropped the fighting stance and held out his hand.

_Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,  
But he'll remember, with advantages,  
What feats he did that day. _

A janitor named Showtunes distributed coldpacks to all the walking wounded in the room, starting with Casey. He accepted his with thanks. "So you knew all along? Your DDO was under orders not to tell anyone who we were, or even that we were here." He took a sip of his fruit juice, and made a face at the bitterness. No one else seemed to notice.

"Yeah, well, that's how we knew. Nobody is just assigned to this detail, Major. I hand pick my men. Only the best of the best are chosen for this duty."

_No wonder he went along with it so easily._ Casey winced, putting the coldpack in place. "Cleaning toilets?"

"It looks that way, doesn't it? Gentlemen." Every man in the room snapped to attention, even the ones who could barely stand. "We are Interiors Maintenance, Major Casey." Casey saluted automatically, and they settled into their former positions. "We defend this building and the people in it from all attacks, both within and without. No biological or chemical attack has ever succeeded–"

"What about that anthrax scare?"

"Staged. By us, so no one would notice that we were the only ones not affected. We also deal with internal espionage. We caught that phone call this morning–"

"Miss Ross?"

"Imagine our surprise that you caught it first and fastest. That was Tough Guy, I'm guessing. He's been quite the busy little bee today."

They didn't know the half of it, and Casey couldn't tell them. "We didn't know–"

"No one knows, Major. No one is allowed to know, unless they're one of _us_. Ladyfeelings."

Casey smiled. "I see."

"What happened to the package?"

Something landed on the table with a thump, and all eyes turned to see what it was. The flashbang exploded, blinding them, although Casey could hear the sound of multiple shots being fired. Darts of some kind. He felt a prick in his own chest, followed by a pins-and-needles sensation that quickly faded.

"Exactly what I want to know, gentlemen," said someone, presumably the tosser and shooter. "The prickling you are feeling will soon become something much more unpleasant, to be followed by a slow and prolonged death. There is no cure, but if you answer my question now I will give you a quicker death before I leave." He held up his gun, in promise.

Casey tried to rise, but the pain of his injuries stopped him."Who the hell are you?"

"I am Falcon, Mister…Ladyfeelings. Ah. I believe Miss Ross mentioned you, before I gave her ease."

"What's…in the…package?" panted Dimples.

"Construction documents and expense reports for something called an intersection chamber. Not my business really, but my superiors will be so glad that I have found out why we've had so much trouble getting information out of this building." He pulled a tube out of his pocket, started screwing it onto his gun. "Useful information, that is. We've gotten quite a bit of the…less helpful sort. Now gentlemen, before you become too agonized to talk and I am forced to leave you: where is my package?"

"Right here," said a voice in a different part of the room.

The gunman looked away, just in time to see a heavy and clumsily-made ceramic ashtray as it flew towards his head. They both fell to the floor.

Dimples and crew rose, in no apparent pain. "Good job with the ashtray, Pebbles."

"My daughter's ashtray?" said another man–Lilywhite, if Casey recalled correctly–in mild distress. "Tell me it's not broken!"

"Relax, Lily, we couldn't break one of her craft projects if we tried. Everybody get more juice, just in case. Especially the Major. It's got all sorts of anti-toxins mixed in, that's why it tastes so bad," he commented to Casey. He looked down at the stunned Ring agent, grunted in satisfaction. "Monologuing ploy gets 'em every time."

"You call it what?" asked Casey, drinking his bitter juice gratefully.

"The monologuing ploy. You pretend to be defeated, and the bad guy rants about his evil plot while making grandiose gestures." He toed the silenced gun to one side, and Lilywhite picked it up. "Better than torture. It works more often than you think."

Casey grunted. "Sounds like something from a comic book."

"Hey!" said Showtunes sharply. "Don't go dissing _The Incredibles_, it's a great movie!"

"You obviously haven't seen _Finding Nemo_ yet."

"Here we go," said Dimples to Casey, sotto voce. Raising his voice, he said, "Save it for break time, gentlemen. In case you haven't noticed, we still have a spy to take care of."

Casey looked down at the semi-conscious man. "How do you 'take care of' spies if you're so secret?"

Dimples shrugged. "We're the Janitors. We clean up all the messes. Kill him, Pebbles."

"Sir." Pebbles stepped forward, grabbing the spy by the throat. With one hand he lifted the man into the air. Falcon choked and gurgled, all his weight hanging off his neck, suffocating slowly.

"Showoff," muttered Dimples. "Speed it up."

Pebbles hit him, a right cross that took his head where his neck couldn't follow, and the man sagged. Showtunes was right on hand with a wheelbarrow, and Pebbles dropped the body into it. "Next stop, the Pit of Flaming Doom."

"I'm guessing you mean the incinerator," said Casey.

"Of course," said Showtunes, "But it's more fun my way."

"You mind if I search the body first?"

Dimples shrugged and waved him on. "Knock yourself out."

_This story shall the good man teach his son;  
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,  
From this day to the ending of the world,  
But we in it shall be remembered-  
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;_

_For he to-day that sheds his blood with me  
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,  
This day shall gentle his condition;_

Ugly ashtrays called for ugly cigars, and Dimples had shared out his personal stock with his latest crewman, i.e., Casey, who couldn't honorably refuse, when Babyface walked into the room, an unconscious Tough Guy slung over his shoulder.

"Took you long enough. What the hell happened to you?"

The big man gestured over his shoulder, the one without Chuck on it. "She did."

He stepped aside, revealing Sarah Walker/Bartowski/Carmichael as he put his burden carefully in a chair. She didn't look happy. All the men in the room sat up straighter.

"You had two other guys with you," said Dimples. "Where are they?"

"They're in the infirmary," she replied.

"What happened to 'em?"

"I did. My protectee took a trang dart meant for me. I returned the favor."

"Sorry about that."

"Not as sorry as they will be, when they wake up." She looked at John, leg braced, cuts bandaged, bruises purpling. "What the hell happened to you?"

"They did."

"What?"

Everyone flinched. "We, uh, we made him swim to the top of Mount Wannahockaloogie and swim through the Ring of Fire."

She looked enlightened. "Ah. _Finding Nemo_." She'd seen the movie at least once with Ellie and Devon. They didn't have any children yet but they were still vetting the movies she'd be allowed to watch. "The _Fight Club_ version."

They were all quick to agree.

"And does any one of you nice people want to explain why my protectee here was getting hazed in the cafeteria, of all places?"

Eyes shifted all around.

"Agent Walker," said Casey, with curious emphasis, "It's complicated."

She considered this. "Does it affect our mission?"

Casey smiled. "Not anymore." He blew a ring of foul-smelling cigar smoke at her and she stepped back. "Take Tough Guy home. I want to hang here for a while."

"Can you hold on a second? I got someone who'd love to meet you." At her quick nod, he turned and raised his voice. "Hey, Muffin!"

_And gentlemen in England now-a-bed  
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,  
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks  
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day._


End file.
